World Bank Group | Brief May 2012

At a glance

+ Achieving food and nutrition security is still a great challenge for the poorest around the world. The world continues to consume more food every year as the population grows, and due to rising demand for industrial uses of food.

+ Nearly one in seven people around the world (an estimated 925 million) remain hungry, and an estimated 2 billion are deficient in micronutrients like iron, zinc, and vitamin A (so called “hidden hunger”).

+ Children and women of reproductive age are especially vulnerable, given their particularly high nutrient requirements. Child malnutrition accounts for more than a third of the mortality burden of children under the age of five. Twenty countries account for 80 percent of the world’s 171 million malnourished children with stunted growth.

+ Empowering women is critical to ensuring food and nutrition security. Women are responsible for a large part of the world’s food production, contributing more than 50 percent in many developing countries. Yet they own less than 10 percent of the land and have very little access to assistance for agricultural investment. Women are also responsible for nutrition in most homes, but have less access to education, services, and less control over resources.

+ Countries need to address these challenges with a mix of short-term measures to alleviate the immediate hardship on the poor and vulnerable, while in the long term address the promotion of sustainable agriculture to achieve growth and food security in a more uncertain and volatile global context.

The challenge

Undernourishment taxes current and future economic growth by increasing mortality and susceptibility to diseases and by lowering labor productivity. The resulting decline in cognitive development in children, increased susceptibility to infection and

chronic diseases for children and adults alike, and diminished labor productivity undermine human capital development critical for future economic growth.

Food security and nutrition security are different but related concepts. Availability of—and access to—food are necessary but not sufficient conditions for nutrition security. The latter is achieved when secure access to food is coupled with a sanitary environment, adequate health services, and knowledgeable nutrition care.

Eighteen countries have already met the Hunger Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of halving the proportion of the population below the minimum level of dietary energy consumption (between 1990 and 2015) and 26 countries are on track to the meet it. Meanwhile, 42 countries have made insufficient progress or have actually gotten worse. Furthermore, among the countries close to meeting the target, all but two have made insufficient or no progress on the other Hunger MDG target of reducing the prevalence of underweight children under five.

This already precarious situation was further exacerbated by the recent food price increase and volatility in 2008, and again in 2011. Higher food prices lead to higher levels of undernourishment as poor net consumers find themselves unable to purchase the minimum amount of calories, nutrients, and proteins required for their day-to-day activities. Higher food prices have two main effects on net buyers of food: an income effect through decreases in purchasing power of poor households and a substitution effect through shifts to less nutritious food. The poor have no choice but to reduce their overall food consumption in response to higher prices from levels that are already too low. Changing trends in climate and continued environmental degradation will put further stress on the situation.

The future we want

The overarching goal is to ensure that hunger is eradicated and that food security for all has been fully achieved according to the definition that was agreed at the 1996 World Food Summit. This states that “Food security exists when all people, at all times, have

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World Bank Group | Brief May 2012

resilience to climate change. They also include strategies to reduce agriculture’s contribution to climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions and increasing carbon storage on farmland. They also include broader green growth approaches that emphasize innovations, efficiency gains, loss reduction, and improved water management, and address agricultural pollution, food safety, pest management, and biodiversity loss. Sustainable intensification combined with integrated landscape management are key implementation strategies.

A “business as usual” approach to agriculture will not automatically translate into improved nutritional outcomes for vulnerable groups of the population, nor will it necessarily be sustainable. The global Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) movement calls for a nutrition-sensitive development in related sectors such as agriculture in addition to carrying out proven and effective direct nutrition interventions. In agriculture, specific nutrition-sensitive actions such as investing in female smallholder farmers, biofortified crops, and improving nutrition knowledge to enhance dietary diversity must be pursued to achieve full food security, including nutrition security. To effectively reach our goal, we must also learn from other initiatives where the agriculture and health sectors have successfully worked together such as the “One Health” vision to safeguard human and animal health, to reduce disease threats, and to ensure a safe food supply through effective and responsible management of natural resources.

References and suggested readings IFPRI. 2020 International Conference on Leveraging Agriculture for Improving Nutrition and Health website (2011), includes links to conference briefs on various aspects of the three main topics dis-cussed: agriculture, health, and nutrition. http://2020conference.ifpri.info/publications/.

Save the Children. 2012. A Life Free from Hunger. London: Save the Children Fund.

Scaling Up Nutrition: A Framework for Action. Available online at www.scalingupnutrition.org.

UNDP. 2009. Resource Guide on Gender and Climate Change. New York, UNDP.

USAID. “USAID Fact Sheet: Food Security and Gender.” Accessed 4/4/2012 on http://www.usaid.gov/our_work/cross-cutting_programs/wid/pubs/WID_FACTSHEET_Gender_Food_Security.pdf.

World Bank. Various. Food Price Watch. http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/TOPICS/EXTPOVERTY/0,,contentMDK:22838758~pagePK:210058~piPK:210062~theSitePK:336992,00.html.

World Bank. 2006. Repositioning Nutrition as Central to Development: A Strategy for Large-Scale Action. http://siteresources.worldbank.org/NUTRITION/Resources/281846-1131636806329/NutritionStrategy.pdf.

World Bank. 2007. “Pathways from Agriculture to Nutrition: Pathways, Synergies and Outcomes.” http://siteresources.worldbank.org/EXTARD/Resources/Final.pdf.

World Bank. 2008. World Development Report 2008: Agriculture for Development. Washington, DC: World Bank.

World Bank. 2009. “Implementing Agriculture for Development: World Bank Group Agriculture Action Plan 2010–2012.” http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTARD/Resources/Agriculture_Action_Plan_web.pdf.

World Bank. 2011. “Responding to Global Food Price Volatility and Its Impact on Food Security.” http://siteresources.worldbank.org/DEVCOMMINT/Documentation/22887406/DC2011-0002(E)FoodSecurity.pdf.

World Bank. 2012 (forthcoming). “Responding to Higher and More Volatile World Food Prices.”

World Bank. 2012 (draft). “Resilience, Equity, and Opportunity: The World Bank’s Social Protection and Labor Strategy 2012–2022.”

physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life.” This must be achieved in a sustainable way to ensure that the achievements can be enjoyed and sustained by future generations. Natural resources are most heavily impacted by human behavior, and changes in population numbers, wealth, and associated changes in human behaviors toward food consumption, crop farming, and livestock and fish production are at the center of these impacts. Few human behaviors are as deeply rooted as food consumption, and in poor countries food and nutrition security rank near the top of human and political priorities.

How do we get there?

This future is realized by countries choosing the most appropriate policy mix to address the implications of higher and more volatile food prices based on the specific country context. What is called for is a mix of short-term measures to alleviate the immediate hardship on the poor and vulnerable, while in the long term addressing the promotion of sustainable agriculture to achieve growth and food security in a more uncertain and volatile global context.

Short-term responses should focus on protecting the most poor and vulnerable through targeted safety nets, while stimulating short-term food production to avoid further problems in the next harvest cycle. Specifically, vulnerable populations should be protected through the “3Ps” of (i) Prevention (against drops in well-being from income and expenditure shocks), (ii) Protection (from destitution and catastrophic losses of human capital), and (iii) Promotion (of improved opportunities and livelihoods, notably through connecting to better jobs and opportunities).

Longer-term responses must be based on a country-led strategic vision that includes building the capacity for sustainability. Such responses should focus on agricultural productivity growth, trade facilitation, and better linking farmers to markets. They should also focus on assisting in risks and vulnerability management, support for rural non-farm income, and sustainable social safety nets to diversify incomes, in addition to enhancing environmental services and sustainability.

Addressing the gender dimensions of food and nutrition security will need to form an integral part of intervention strategies. Food and nutrition security cannot be achieved without addressing the cultural, social, and political norms that prevent women and girls from having the same access as men to education, economic opportunities, and productive inputs. Interventions should include the promotion of property, divorce, and inheritance laws that allow women to hold title to land; providing women and girls with access to education and training on agricultural production; and making financial and extension services more accessible to rural women.

Furthermore, donors need to renew their commitment to achieve food security by supporting country efforts, respecting the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness (2005) and the Accra Agenda for Action (2008). Stronger leadership and ownership by recipients, more harmonization and coordination across donors, mutual accountability for results between donors and recipients, and greater transparency are all critical.

“Win-win” scenarios need to be actively sought. These include climate-smart agriculture, which seeks to increase productivity in an environmentally and socially sustainable way to strengthen farmers’